Hirschhorn

Dr. Deb

April’s Nervous Part

By Deb Hirschhorn, Ph.D.

Last week, I wrote about the Internal Family Systems approach to therapy – and healing. I am absolutely fascinated with this way of finding out why we say and do things that we don’t even agree with, why we may not stick to our plans, why life can be so doggone hard.

In just a few sessions, people have discovered why they’re hurt inside and how to heal that hurt part of the Self. They discover why their behavior can be contradictory or why they seem so indecisive. They learn why they are like the mother they swore they wouldn’t be like. They find out why they married the person they married and why that turns out to be a good thing. They see what is good about their worst habits and why they’ve stuck around so long.

Now, you may be wondering what this has to do with marriage.

The answer is: everything.

When your marriage is not working, it always takes two people, right? You may argue with me, that that is not true at all – it is the other person’s “fault.” And I will (gently and lovingly) point out that since you married

that person, there must be a reason you were attracted and something you are doing right now that also keeps the pot boiling. And something inside you is keeping you there.

And, I would suspect, it is all for a very good reason.

Our inner system of functioning is generally very good, not very bad. We are much wiser than we give ourselves credit for. You may not believe this because you may be used to beating yourself up. But I’m here to tell you that it is only a part of you that is doing the beating. And it is only beating a part of you, too. Not your whole Self. Your Self, under the parts that can make chaos and be very confusing, is wise and centered.

Which brings me back to marriage. If you really are someone who has been beating yourself up, then that is part of the equation in the marriage. Perhaps that is not helping the marriage get better. Similarly, if you are anxious or sad or blameful or angry, it won’t help the marriage, either.

People often come to me telling me of the difficulties they have with their spouse. And I say, you will have clarity as to how to proceed once you look closely at yourself first. I applaud the people who do want to look at their own way of responding, their own emotions, and their own attitudes. Those are the people likely to either have some effect on changing the dynamics of the marriage or even to have a positive effect on their hesitant spouse to work closely on themselves, too.

Let’s take an example. (I’m making this up.) April is 45 years old. She is married with three children. She finds it difficult to create peace for herself at home because her husband could flare up at her unexpectedly. For example, one time recently, he walked in the door, mad. She doesn’t know why, but he generally takes it out on her. She is now a nervous wreck because of it, and she wasn’t nervous prior to the marriage.

Doing IFS work, however important – eventually – to the health of the marriage to talk about your spouse, is done by yourself and about yourself, not about your spouse. When I explained that to April, it made her happy to think that she could focus on herself, finally. It didn’t all have to be about her difficult husband.

Since I told her we want to get to understand her better, it would be good if she could suggest which part of herself we should get to know first.

“My anxiety,” she answered immediately. “I’ve become a nervous wreck, and I can’t stand it.”

“Ah,” I commented, “so you have two parts within you that don’t get along. There’s the nervous part that is pretty much with you most of the time, and then there is a critical part that doesn’t like the nervous part.”

“Yes, that’s true,” she replied.

“Which part do you want to focus on first?” I asked.

“Let’s do the nervous part,” April answered.

At this point, I asked April to close her eyes and focus internally. I asked her to ask both parts, the nervous part and the critical part, to step back a few feet away from her. I realize this is all imaginative, but something fascinating here is that everyone does either see or feel or in some way experience their parts internally. (My suspicion is that Schwartz’s discovery of parts will eventually be substantiated with neuronal and

chemical substrates for the clusters of behaviors, thoughts, and feelings that accompany parts.)

April reports that she could not get the critical part to step away. She admitted that she feels most of the time like a mixture herself of these parts. This is pretty common. So I asked her if I could talk to the critical part directly and she said, “Sure.” I thanked it for participating and wanted to assure it that I believe that it was doing a necessary job and I would be most eager to find out about it shortly. Then I asked if it would mind stepping back for now so April can learn more about the part of her that’s nervous, and I promised to return to the critical part. Sure enough, when I then asked April to have her critical part step back, she said it did.

I asked April, now freed temporarily of these parts, what she thought of the nervous part. Without the critical part confusing her answers, she said that she wondered why this nervous part needed to be there all the time. I thought that was a great question, so I asked her to ask it of her nervous part.

The answer was quite a shocker to April. The nervous part said, “When April busies herself with being nervous, she doesn’t have to think about how sad and lonely she really is. That is how I help her.”

Of course, there are as many reasons why a person would develop a protective part whose “job” seems so counterintuitive. But the reality is that whether you want to call this a part or a coping mechanism, all of them were developed by us as children and were 100% meant to help us deal with difficult situations. Situations that were then and are now way over our heads. We did the best we could creating these parts so as to function as well as we could in a challenging world.

Now, how will this help the marriage?

First of all, April can now “negotiate” with this nervous part to participate less often, especially if she promises to deal with the sad and lonely part so it won’t have to pop up when she’s not being nervous.

Second, this is only the beginning because there’s a part that has been criticizing the other parts and she needs to understand the purpose of that. We all have an inner critic. Who is she or he? Why is it there? We want, generally, to shut it up and banish it. In fact, that is what I used to tell my clients. But this paradigm has taught me that if all parts came to be out of need then the critic also has a positive role. If we can learn what that role and that raison d’etre is for the critic, we can also negotiate with it that it can take on a new role and no longer carry the burden of negativity.

Third, she will come to exert her leadership of her Self over these parts and the parts will no longer need such loud voices in her head. Her Self will be able to allay the fears of the parts and shine more often without their interference. They can go on to be the kids they were supposed to be, encouraging April’s creativity and curiosity.

So when she is functioning at a calmer and connected level, it will surely have an impact on her husband. When he walks in angry the next time, she can simply be curious as to what went on and kind to him that she’s sorry whatever it was happened. Even if he is totally irrational in his reaction, she can reply from a place of wisdom.

This, in turn, can help him to decide to work on himself, or she can decide that she wants him to do that because it’s necessary for the stability and happiness of the marriage. This clarity will help April make the decisions she needs to make in her marriage – and about her marriage.

Dr. Deb Hirschhorn is a Marriage and Family Therapist. If you want help with your marriage, begin by signing up to watch her Masterclass at https://drdeb. com/myw-masterclass.